STUDENT PERSPECTIVES
Why you need to know about academic journals
Lucy Clark and
Charlotte Hartin The following article is the script of a speech
program at Pymble which enabled students to
delivered at the Pymble Research Conference,
immerse themselves in their chosen ‘passion’
October 2021 by Lucy Clark and Charlotte Hartin
projects. Students were able to develop unique and
for their presentation on academic journal
insightful presentations – which were later shared
articles. The original article documenting Lucy
in a showcase format. We both participated in this
and Charlotte’s investigation this topic was
program in both Years 8 and 9. In fact, for the Year
published in the College’s research and innovation
9 project, we worked together to formulate our
journal, Illuminate Edition 5, 2020, 64-67.
own academic article based around the study of sports psychology.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ARTICLE ONLINE About the authors
Our reference list from the project is quite enlightening as one of the first links is “what goes into a scholarly article”. Considering this, at the end
In 2020, Charlotte and Lucy developed their own
of the three months we had co-written a 10,000-
original research and, throughout that process,
word paper. After its completion, we were invited
learned the importance of students’ understanding
into the Pymble Ethics Committee, due to the data
of research and how to enter the world of
collection associated with our paper.
academics. Lucy is also an artistic gymnast and coach and her interest is in the area of sport and how people can better develop their sporting skills. Charlotte loves digging deeper into research and learning more about topics in depth. She enjoys rowing for Pymble and playing tennis. The speech I’m Lucy and this is Charlotte, and we began Pymble’s student-led academic journal club, the Junior Journal Club. In our presentation today, we will address our personal experience, the importance of student academic literacy, and how
In our classes, we are constantly advised to use academic articles for our research – specifically those found on JSTOR. Yet, due to the sheer length, confusing structure and language utilised, the vast majority of students find them incredibly daunting. We then revert to the powers of Google, which is significantly easier, yet limited in its credibility. With the abundance of information, it is vital to navigate relevance. There is an untapped potential for academic writing within secondary education – if only we were taught to fully understand its use and application within our learning.
we have applied this within our own community
This experience and newfound knowledge sparked a
– creating the Junior Journal Club. We hope our
passion, as we strove to enable others to understand
student perspective provides insight into our views
and recognise the importance of the academic
of the academic world.
world. Following our Sokratis research project, we
We embarked on this journey with the Sokratis
Perspective – Student Research Journal – ISSUE 2, 2021
had the opportunity to interview Professor Mockler for Pymble’s Illuminate journal. This experience
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